


Carbon Copy

by sarahyellow



Series: Copies [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bottom TJ, Clone TJ, Clones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Modern Steve Rogers--no Captain America, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, TJ is Bucky's clone, Temporary Character Death, Top Steve Rogers, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-04-04 18:38:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14026281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahyellow/pseuds/sarahyellow
Summary: Widowed after the events at the triskelion, Steve discovers his late husband's clone two years later.TJ is everything he was expecting, and not.





	1. Project Copycat, Exposed

CNN anchor: “This just in: Formerly classified S.H.I.E.L.D documents, released by the operative Black Widow after the fall of the Triskelion two years ago, have just revealed that _Genocorp_ , the pharmaceutical and genetic research conglomerate that is a subsidiary of Stark Industries, has been running a secret cloning program with live subjects. The news is provoking outrage and disbelief among the American public and within the government as well as the international scientific community. With us here to discuss the ramifications of these findings are FDA assistant deputy director Doctor Karen Gleeson and criminal defense attorney and CNN legal contributor John Debrau. Karen, John, thank you for joining us.”

John: “Thank you.”

Karen: “Good to be here.”

CNN anchor: “So let’s get right down to it. What are the legal ramifications of this program being in existence, John? _Is_ it legal?”

John: “Based on the information we’re seeing coming out, definitely not. This program was being conducted without knowledge or permission from any government health agency, as I’m sure Karen can tell you. They were cloning human subjects, and as we’re just finding out these were live, fully cognizant individuals. Many were adults.”

CNN anchor: “Actual people?”

John: “Yes.”

CNN anchor: “Karen, what can you tell us about this secret program? Did the FDA have any knowledge of what Genocorp was doing?”

Karen: “No Brooke. The program that these newly-released documents refer to as _Project Copycat_ was never submitted for any level of approval to the FDA or any other government agency. There was no oversight whatsoever.”

CNN anchor: “Correct me if I’m wrong Doctor, but hasn’t Genocorp conducted well-known cloning research in the past?”

John: “Yes but—”

Karen: “Indeed but those studies were approved and transparent. And legal. They only dealt with the cloning of human tissue; cell clusters, organs. Certainly not anything even close to the scale that we’re seeing here. This is unprecedented. These are live human subjects that were cloned.”

CNN anchor: “It’s being reported that the facility that housed this "Project Copycat" was a sort of underground compound, and that Genocorp was keeping these human clones there against their will. What sorts of charges are the responsible parties at Genocorp looking at?”

John: “This really is an unprecedented situation Brooke. Federal prosecutors will likely have their pick of what charges to bring. We could see anything from Human Trafficking charges to Slavery to Kidnapping or False imprisonment charges. The possibilities are endless.”

CNN anchor: “The argument’s been made that Genocorp may try to make claims of proprietary ownership. Is this a possibility?”

John: “That idea should be laughable but it may be their only choice if they want to mount a legal defense.”

CNN anchor: “Karen?”

Karen: “It’s ridiculous. The situation these clones found themselves in was tantamount to the human experimentation that took place under Nazi Germany. The efforts that will have to be put forth to liberate and rehabilitate these individuals is going to be huge. In my opinion this will be the end of Genocorp as a whole.”

CNN anchor: “That’s saying a lot. Genocorp is the world’s leading pharmaceuticals manufacturer, as well as a leader in cancer research. John, what about Stark Industries? As the owner of Genocorp are they responsible for any of this?”

John: “Legally they could definitely be culpable. They are most certainly going to have to answer for this.”

CNN anchor: “Well there you have it. Karen, John, I want to thank you both for being with us here tonight. Up next: numerous questions still remain as to the reality of just what was going on behind closed doors at Genocorp’s secret facility in the Mojave Desert. After the break we’ll have further discussion on what living conditions were like for the unwilling subjects of Project Copycat, and what they may face in the days ahead.”

.oOo.

 **lauren drell** _@drelly_  
This is totally insane. What is the world coming to??! Thank God for Black Widow releasing those documents. _#Clonegate_

 **Sam Murphey** _@HeySamantha_  
 _@drelly_ For all we know Black Widow was in on it. They’re saying people at Shield excuse me HYDRA all had clones in that facility. She’s probably got a clone of her own!

 **Emily Branowitz** _@Brealnowitz_   
I’d pay money to be the one to get to keep the Winter Soldier’s clone. _#assassin!sexslave #sorrynotsorry_

 **David Li** _@Ligetsit_  
 _@Brealnowitz_ You’re sick. Have some respect for the dead.

.oOo.

Somewhere around midnight on July fifth Steve goes to bed in his apartment on the forty-first floor of Avenger’s Tower, giving the unused pillow next to him a light kiss like he has done for the past two years. It’s a silly ritual that he hasn’t been able to make himself give up, but at least he doesn’t cry about going to sleep alone anymore. His second birthday without Bucky hadn’t been nearly as hard as the first.

He wakes up the next morning to the sound of Jarvis overriding his alarm, telling him that everyone has been asked to assemble in the conference room downstairs. When Steve gets dressed and gets down there he’s expecting muffins and a mission debrief (ever since Bucky’s death he’s become somewhat of an extended houseguest and he gets to at least hear about all of the crazy missions they go on). Tony calls him an honorary Avenger.

Instead what he walks in on is a room full of somber-faced superheroes. Pepper looks like she hasn’t slept, if the circles under her eyes are anything to go by, and she’s got the room’s tv turned on to the national news, where headlines flash with the words “Genocorp” and “Stark Industries” and “cloning program.” Pepper’s eyes find Steve where he’s standing in the doorway and she gestures to the chair next to Natasha’s. “Steve,” she tells him, “you’re going to want to sit down.”


	2. Press Conference

Once Pepper explains the basics of what’s happened, the whole team sits in stunned silence for a long moment. Loki and Thor are visiting from New Asgard, sitting at one end of the conference room’s table, and it’s Loki who breaks the silence. 

“Well honestly I don’t see what all the fuss is about.” Slowly, everyone’s heads turn towards him. “What?” Loki protests. “It’s perfectly practical. You humans are so damned fragile, I’d have thought you’d be elated to have backup organs and such.”

Thor thunks his head down into his hand, clearly embarrassed at his brother.

“‘Backup organs’?” Sam repeats incredulously. “Man these are _people_.”

Loki shrugs. “Who were specifically cloned to provide spare body parts should you need them. Can’t you see the ingeniousness of the plan? I mean, if you lot really are as important as your governments seem to think you are.” He says this like it’s debatable, and Natasha snorts. Loki shoots her a sharp look “Oh don't pretend you’re not the least moral of this bunch,” he says.

“Look, the fact is that we all might have copies of ourselves walking around now, and we have to figure out what to do about it. Right?” Sam looks to Pepper to confirm.

She nods. “Yes, we do. I have a list here,” she thumbs over the screen of her tablet. “Of the recovered clones. Um…” her eyes shoot up apologetically at them. “Not all of the clones made it out alive. Most didn’t actually.”

“What?” Steve asks, finally speaking up. “What do you mean?”

“Genocorp… the staff at the facility where they were holding these people… they panicked when the news broke. Apparently they were given orders to cover their tracks as quickly as possible.”

Steve feels horrified at what he’s hearing. “You mean they murdered them.”

Pepper nods through a wince. “Yes.” She looks back to her tablet. “This information hasn’t reached the press yet, but they executed most of the clones.”

“Genocide,” Bruce mutters from his spot at the table, not looking up. Steve feels cold at the thought of it.

“Whose clones escaped the slaughter?” Natasha asks, because she’s of course sharp enough to realize that Pepper wouldn’t have brought them in here if at least some of them didn’t have surviving copies of themselves.

“Not yours,” Pepper says, and Natasha’s expression doesn’t change one bit. Steve though, he can tell that she’s satisfied. “Sam, you didn’t have one, as you weren’t part of Shield then.”

“Good. I’m fine with that,” he says sternly.

“Tony you didn’t have one either.” Tony makes some sort of indignant noise in his throat, about to say something about that, but Pepper is quick to cut him off. “Bruce, it seems they decided not to attempt to clone you.”

Bruce gets a sort of self-depreciating smirk on his face. “Too dangerous?”

“It would seem. Clint, your clone died as well. Wanda yours is still alive but she’s… well she’s loose. They can’t find her as of right now. It would seem that your powers were passed on to her and she’s been using them to keep herself hidden. Thor, Loki, well…” she shrugs. Clearly, based on the logic that Loki himself had so blithely pointed out, neither of the two near-immortals would really need ‘spare body parts’. Pepper’s eyes move to Steve, whom she regards cautiously. 

Steve straightens in alarm. “I’m not even an avenger,” he says.

“No. They didn’t clone you.”

Steve relaxes. “Oh. Good.”

“They um, they cloned Bucky.”

Steve goes cold, feels the blood drain from his face. In his head, all he can think is, _no, it’s not possible_. Even though it really is. “Bucky?” he says numbly. 

“Yeah.” Pepper is looking at him softly. Natasha is looking at him very observantly. Everyone at the table is staring at him actually, and Steve swallows, not knowing what to say under such scrutiny. 

“He wouldn’t have liked that,” he winds up saying. “Did um… is it alive?” He instantly feels guilty for using the pronoun ‘it’, but he doesn’t speak up to correct himself.

“Yes,” Pepper says quietly. “He was one of the few who did survive the massacre.”

If Steve feels disappointed at that, he will never ever admit it. Natasha, he thinks though, can definitely tell how deeply this news affects him. _So_ , he thinks numbly, this means there’s a copy of Bucky walking around out there somewhere. The idea is crazy. “Where is…” he clears his throat. “Where is he?”

“All the recovered clones have been taken to,” Pepper regards her tablet, “Adult Protective Services. The department’s building is in midtown. It says here they haven’t been able to place most of them yet. Apparently they don’t know what to do with them. Some are being released into the custody of their respective…” she pauses, not knowing what term to use, “um, their genetic counterparts.”

Everyone’s quiet at this news, not knowing what to say. Steve gathers the courage to ask, “So what are they going to do with Bucky’s?”

Pepper looks helpless to answer his question, but even as her mouth opens to say something comforting, Tony blurts out, “Wait, is no one going to bring up the fact that I’m apparently not important enough to clone?”

.oOo.

The next day, the news breaks that many of the Avengers’ DNA had been part of Genocorp’s cloning program, and the media reaction is swift and frenzied. Pepper makes it very clear to them all that they’re going to have to give a press conference and that nobody’s absence will be tolerated. Even Steve is expected to attend, and he’s dreading it.

They assemble in the lobby of Avenger’s Tower. Like press conferences before (none of which Steve—a civilian—had ever been required to be a part of) a low stage has been put out, and a long table with chairs for them all to sit behind. Pepper takes the middle seat and they all arrange themselves on either side of her as the reporters crowding the lobby immediately start talking and snapping their cameras. Steve takes a seat at the very far end of the table. As the civilian husband of the late Winter Soldier, nobody really knows who he is anyway, and he’s hopeful that he won’t be asked any questions.

The cameras continue clicking, the sounds of the shutters more annoying than they should be. Pepper just sits there and waits for the chatter and rush of shouted questions to die down before she gives a tight-lipped smile and nods at the room as a whole. “Thank you for coming,” she says. “We’re holding this press conference because the Avengers team, like everyone else, is shocked by the actions of Genocorp. And as has been made public knowledge, the team has been more deeply affected than most. We’re here today to answer questions—in a controlled and considerate manner,” she adds sternly, “About Genocorp’s crimes and our knowledge of them.”

The room erupts into loud, obnoxious questions once again, one reporter’s words indistinguishable from the next. Again, Pepper remains composed and waits for it all to die down, and Steve is in awe of her. Pepper nods to a female reporter just in front of their table. “Yes?”

“What is Stark Industries’ response to the scandal?” she asks. “Will your company be taking any responsibility for Project Copycat?”

Pepper’s lips thin but she answers calmly, “What our subsidiary Genocorp has done is an outrage. They have committed heinous crimes against innocent people—the clones created by their program—and no one at Stark Industries ever approved these actions. Project Copycat, as they’re calling it, was a crime committed without anyone at Stark Industry’s knowledge and it represents a serious breach of security. The fact that something like this was done under our watch is unacceptable and we will be conducting an overhaul of security procedures and restructuring all of our oversight protocols. Action has to be taken to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Of course it goes without saying that Genocorp is no longer in business with Stark Industries.”

It’s an impressive speech and Steve feels admiration for Pepper all over again. The reporters, however, don’t seem satisfied. A new barrage of questions emerges, and once she gets the chance Pepper nods to another reporter to speak up.

“What is Stark Industries’ position on the remaining clones? Do the Avengers have clones of themselves?”

“The cloned individuals are human beings who are going to require extensive assistance in integrating themselves to our world,” Pepper says right away. “Stark Industries has no relationship with these individuals. New York City social services are, to our knowledge, assisting the victims.”

“Do the Avengers have clones walking around? Is it safe?”

Steve can see how Pepper’s features harden minutely, though he doubts she looks much different to the reporters. “Though it is quite private, all of the Avengers team has agreed to transparency in this matter. We have been made aware that Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Wanda Maximoff and Sergeant James Barnes all had their DNA submitted to the cloning program. All without their knowledge or consent.” Questions erupt in a flurry of shouts and exclamations louder than before, and Pepper has to wait while two Stark security personnel step forward on the stage and use gestures to calm the crowd. Once everyone shuts up, Pepper says, “Ms. Romanoff’s and Mr. Barton’s clones were murdered by Genocorp staff upon discovery of the program. Miss Maximoff’s clone is at large and is most likely quite frightened by what is happening to her. Authorities are urging the public to ignore her if seen and report any encounters to the police. Sergeant Barnes’ clone is currently in the custody of New York City’s adult protective services.”

“Have you had contact with him? Will the Winter Soldier’s clone be speaking out?” 

Steve tenses and Pepper is quick to reply, “All of the surviving individuals from Genocorp’s program deserve their privacy and the Avengers and Stark Industries firmly support this. We have not contacted any of the individuals.”

Another reporter, this one a man with a reed-like frame and straw-colored hair, addresses Steve directly. “Mr. Rogers.”

Steve tenses up. He hadn’t expected to be asked any questions. He hadn’t expected anyone to even know who he was. His mouth feels dry and he has to wet his lips before saying, “Um, yes?”

“James Barnes was your husband. Do you plan on making contact with his clone?”

“I uh, I don’t… know?” Steve feels frozen where he sits. All of the cameras are pointed towards him now, and he feels incredibly self-conscious under the scrutiny. “I guess it’s up to him—um, up to the guy who’s… Bucky’s clone that is—if he wants to see me,” Steve says. “But I haven’t talked to anyone about it,” he adds hurriedly. He doesn’t want to see Bucky’s clone at all, but he doesn’t say that out loud. He doesn’t even know if the guy—Bucky’s clone—even knows about Steve or Bucky. Steve grips his hands tighter together where they’re folded atop the table and avoids the reporter’s stare. “I don’t know anything else,” he says tightly.

“Miss Maximoff!” another reported calls out, and begins asking her a bunch of questions. Steve only half-listens as Wanda struggles to answer the overly-invasive questions, already tuned-out from the shock and disturbance of this whole affair. He’s itching to get off stage as soon as possible, and he can’t help but to be relieved when no more questions are thrown his way. Natasha, Bruce and Clint answer questions as they come at them, with Pepper interjecting when she needs to, and Tony is more than willing to make himself the center of attention besides. Steve just sits tight and waits for the whole excruciating event to be over.


	3. Meeting TJ

New York City’s adult social services building is a grey brick affair in midtown. Rather squat in comparison to all of the other buildings surrounding it, it still manages to loom over Steve where he stands on the sidewalk, a moody imposition as he tries to decide if he’s really going to go in.

“Steve?” Natasha says quietly where she’s standing next to him. “We doing this?”

Steve tenses his jaw but winds up nodding. “Yeah. Come on.” He heads for the doors, Natasha close on his heels. Inside, the lobby is a bit of controlled chaos. There are a ton of people, all talking with social service workers in louder than necessary voices. Steve’s eyes flit over everything, unsure of where to go or who to talk to. Luckily, a woman with a nametag clipped to her lapel approaches them.

“Can I help you?” she asks. She sounds harried but her voice is pleasant enough. Her nametag reads Dolores.

Steve nods. “I uh. My late husband is one of the people who had a clone.”

“Say no more.” The woman gestures for Steve to follow her. “This way.”

They take the elevator up to the fourth floor, where they’re handed over to another social worker, this one a middle-aged man in a rumpled suit. He too, looks harried as he greets them. “Been crazy around here,” he tells them as he logs onto his computer to find the information they need. “Ever since this whole clonegate thing blew up. Goddamn mad scientists. Now we got all these empty-headed adult who don’t hardly know what to do with themselves. Buncha overgrown babies.”

Steve shares a perturbed glance with Natasha but says nothing. The man finds the information he needs and stands to direct them further. He takes them up another two floors and they exit from the elevator onto what is pretty obviously a residential wing. It’s vaguely hospital-like, with outdated furniture creating a bare-bones sort of common area in the middle, and doors to what are probably private rooms lining all the walls. Steve and Natasha go and sit down in the common area at the social worker’s behest and wait while he goes to find Bucky’s clone. 

Sitting there, Steve twiddles his thumbs and looks around. There’s a television set high up on a wall, playing an episode of some home improvement show. The common room is empty except for him, Natasha, and couple of men and women in sweatpants and tee shirts. It’s obvious that they’ve been given the clothes to wear, and Steve wonders if they’re clones too.

“Steve,” Natasha murmurs. 

Steve’s attention shoots back to her, and he sees where she’s looking. The social worker is coming back towards them, this time with…

 _God_ , he looks just like Bucky. 

Steve’s heart clenches harder than it has in a year, and his face feels hot like he’s going to cry. _Pull it together Rogers._ He’d tried, he’d really tried to prepare himself for this, for what it would be like to see this person—a genetic copy of his late husband. Someone who looks so much like Bucky. But _God_ , Steve thinks harshly. He just mustn’t have that good of an imagination because he never could’ve imagined feeling like this.

He’s looking right at Bucky’s face again. It’s _Bucky’s_ face and it’s ripping Steve’s heart straight out of his chest. “I’m sorry,” he says softly as Bucky’s clone and the social worker approach. He stands up and backs away, feeling like he might vomit. “I’m sorry I can’t.” 

He runs away.

.oOo.

Steve splashes water on his face in the bathroom, pulls himself together, and goes back out to face reality. They’re all still there; the social worker and Bucky— _not Bucky_ , he reminds himself—looking at him curiously, and Natasha looking at him with complete understanding. God bless her. Steve clears his throat as he approaches. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Don’t know what came over me.”

The social worker looks distinctly uncomfortable but he makes the introduction. “Mr. Rogers, this is TJ. TJ, this is Steve Rogers.”

Steve blinks, taken-aback. “TJ?” he repeats dumbly. 

The man who looks just like Bucky nods and holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he says mildly.

Steve shakes himself, realizing that he’s been staring. “Sorry,” he says, trying to approximate something akin to a smile. “I didn’t know your ah, your name.”

TJ nods. “They told me that I look like your ex-husband.”

Steve’s heart starts beating faster again. This is hard. Harder than he thought it was going to be. This guy—this _TJ_ —sounds just like Bucky. He has the same face and the same damned voice. Steve swallows. “Late husband,” he corrects. “Bucky, he… he died.”

“Oh.” TJ looks down, at where the slippers he’s wearing rest against the linoleum of the floor. He’s dressed in the generic sweats and tee-shirt like the other people Steve saw. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

Steve shrugs, though he feels anything but flippant about it. “Was years ago,” he says. “But we heard about you and, well…” _Well?_ He doesn’t really know what else to say. The government was largely releasing these clones into the custody of the people they’d been cloned from, and Bucky was dead and gone, and his clone didn’t have anywhere to go. Steve nods over at Natasha where she’s standing beside him. “This is Natasha Romanoff.”

“Hi,” she greets calmly, and TJ seems responsive enough to that.

“Hi.”

“Anyway we’re uh, we live at a place called Avengers’ Tower. It’s a building owned by a man named Tony Stark.” Steve pauses, unsure how much this TJ knows about the outside world. “You know who Iron man is? The Avengers?” 

Surprisingly, TJ nods. It’s little, and it’s unsure, but it’s there. “They showed me how to Google,” he says. “And they told me who I was cloned from, so I could google him.”

Steve swallows. “Oh.” So this guy knew about Bucky? The idea was weird but also somewhat of a relief. It certainly meant Steve had less that he’d have to explain, and he was grateful for that. “So you know. Okay, that’s good.” He nods. “Any way we live in Avengers’ tower, and I guess since I’m Bucky’s only surviving… well I’m the only one who can inherit you. Or…” he winces. That had not come out right. “Well they said you could come home with me. If you wanted.” TJ blinks at him and Steve is quick to add, “But you don’t have to. Definitely don’t have to. You can stay here if you want.” He looks over to the social worker to lend support to this. “Right?”

“Of course,” the man says quickly. “Yes TJ. You have the choice. It’s up to you what you’d like to do.”

TJ bites his lip in a distinctly non-Bucky way, and looks at them all. “I don’t know…” He scuffs the indoor slipper-shoes they’ve given him. “I don’t really have anything going for me here.” A careful glance to Steve, almost shy in its consideration. “Would you mind if I went with you?”

Steve’s heart thumps extra hard—a sad, aching feeling. “Oh yeah. I won’t mind.” He looks to Natasha and she nods encouragingly. “We’ve got um, that is to say there’s plenty of room at the tower. I’m sure we can get you set up with your own apartment and such.”

TJ’s face brightens, and it does awful things to Steve’s insides to see that sunny smile again. He abruptly finds that he has to turn away. “Nat?” he says, back turned to TJ and feet already carrying him toward the elevator. “You got this?”

“Oh… um yeah,” Natasha says, not commenting further as she watches him unexpectedly stride towards the elevator. If she’s upset with Steve for fleeing she doesn’t get the chance to say anything, because the elevator doors ding shut and Steve is out of view, removed from the situation before he really _can_ break down and cry. Natasha’s left to arrange the details of TJ’s move with the social worker. 

.oOo.

It’s more than seven hours later when he sees Natasha again. She finds him in Brooklyn, where he’s been sitting by Bucky’s gravestone since noon. The sun’s almost set now.

“Steve.” She comes and joins him on the bench where he’s sitting, not saying anything else for a few long minutes. A breeze picks up and blows a few clumps of leaves across the grass over Bucky’s grave. “You know it’d kill him to see you unhappy.”

Steve scoffs, and it’s a sad, choked-off sort of noise. “Well then he should’ve thought twice before going off and getting himself killed, shouldn’t he?” Natasha doesn’t dignify that with a response, and Steve feels mollified. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I know he was your friend too.”

“Yeah,” she says. “He was.” 

Steve shakes his head, still staring at Bucky’s headstone. _Here lies Sergeant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes_ , it says. _Friend, Hero, Husband. 1917-2016_. “Made it all the way to ninety-nine,” Steve laments. “Couldn’t hang around a little longer.” He lets his head drop, stares at his fingers where they’re clenched in his lap. “I miss him so much Nat.”

“I know.”

“This is like ripping open the wound again,” he blurts. “Seeing him? It’s just…” he chokes off, words dissolving into a sob. He squeezes his eyes shut and a second later feels Natasha leaning against him, giving him a hug from the side. 

“Awful?” she supplies.

“Yes!” Steve sniffles, tries to stop his crying. He hasn’t cried in… gosh, it must be over half a year by now. “I’d been getting over it,” he says. “It was finally getting better. I could actually look at pictures of him, at my old paintings of him, and not feel like my guts were being ripped out. But now? This guy?” Steve exhales shakily. “He’s _him_ Nat. He looks just like him and I don’t know. I just don’t know if I can stand to be around him.”

Natasha keeps leaning against him, silent for a moment before she says, “Well you don’t have to. If it’s too hard for you.”

Steve ponders that for all of a moment before he’s shaking his head and discarding the notion. “He’s got nowhere else to go,” he says. “We can’t just kick him out. We… _Someone_ owes it to him to give him a life.”

“Doesn’t have to be you Steve.”

Steve loves her for saying it, even while he knows that she’s wrong.


	4. Ignoring TJ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several people have asked me about Steve in this fic. Here’s how it is: he’s a modern guy, not from the past like Bucky. He’s big and has had the serum, so he’s strong and stuff, but he’s not an Avenger. He’s a civilian and an artist.

TJ arrives at the tower on a Tuesday. Steve is aware that he’s coming, but he holes himself up in his room and waits for whatever hubbub there’s going to be upon his arrival to die down. He hears Natasha enter his apartments, assumes she’s with TJ because he can hear her talking quietly and he knows that TJ’s been given a room on Steve’s floor of the building. He probably would’ve fought that decision but The only other residential floor that had a spare suite for TJ was on Thor and Loki’s floor, and since the two gods were still visiting Steve didn’t think TJ needed to be inundated with their particular brand of…openness, quite so soon.

He lays on his bed and listens as Natasha takes TJ to his bedroom. 

_“Sir?”_ Jarvis’ voice sounds over the room’s speaker. 

“Yeah?” Steve asks. His throat’s a little raw. He’d been looking at pictures of Bucky again, and this time he’d cried. It’s like TJ’s emergence in his life has ripped the wounds open again. Steve’s trying hard not to be resentful about it. “What is it Jarvis?”

_“I just wanted to inform you that the clone of Mr. Barnes has been shown to his room.”_

“His name’s TJ,” Steve says blandly. 

_“Shall I provide him with clearance for the entire floor?”_ Jarvis asks.

“Everywhere but my studio,” Steve says. Really, he’s sure that TJ wouldn’t cause a problem if he did go in there, but that’s Steve’s private space and he’s sure he’ll need it now that TJ’s effectively living with him.

_“Very good Sir.”_

“Thanks Jarvis.”

_“…Sir, if I may?”_

Steve sighs. “What?”

_“TJ may benefit from your company, should you so choose.”_

Steve is quiet. He doesn’t want to spend time with TJ. He knows he won’t be able to stop thinking of him as Bucky, and that hardly seems fair—to him, TJ, _or_ to Bucky. “Go away Jarvis,” Steve says. He’s never spoken to the AI so rudely in his life. Jarvis goes away.

-

After an hour or two spent hiding in his room Steve gets hungry. He has half a mind to ask Jarvis to send DUM-E up to deliver something to him just so he doesn’t have to leave his room, but in the end decides that he’s being cowardly and needs to bite the bullet, so to speak. He gets up and goes out to the kitchen. TJ is in the living room, sitting on the couch. He’s doing absolutely nothing—just staring out the window. He looks over at Steve when he walks into the kitchen. Steve glances at him but is quick to open the fridge and start rooting around inside.

“Hi,” TJ ventures. 

Steve grabs ham and mayo from the fridge and turns around. “Hi,” he echoes. He goes to pull out the bread from the breadbox.

“Natasha brought me up here,” TJ says. “She said you were okay with it if I lived on your floor.” Steve doesn’t say anything, just starts slathering the mayo on the bread. “Um… is it? Okay?” 

Steve shrugs, still not making eye contact even though he can tell that TJ is. “S’fine,” he says. “You have to stay somewhere.”

TJ’s quiet for a moment, and when Steve can’t stand it anymore he glances up. The guy is still looking at him. “What?” he asks.

“If you don’t want me around you I can go somewhere else,” TJ says. “I get that it bothers you to see me.”

Steve pauses in his sandwich making. He supposes that Bucky’s intuition is something that’s been passed on in the genetic code. The thought hurts as much as it annoys. “I’m sorry,” he says, feeling bad. “I just don’t know what to say.”

TJ shrugs. “Can we talk a little?”

Steve really, really doesn’t want to, but he also feels bad for being so rude. So he finishes making his sandwich, puts it on a plate and comes around to the couch. He sits about as far away from TJ as he can on it. He takes a bite of his sandwich and then pauses. “Um, did you want something to eat?” he asks. 

“I’m okay,” TJ says. “Natasha bought me… Chip… Chipotle?” Steve nods, goes back to eating. “So,” TJ asks, “do I look _exactly_ like him?”

Steve doesn’t like the question. He uses his sandwich-chewing as an excuse not to answer for a long moment. When he finally does he says, “I thought you’d googled him?”

“I did,” TJ says. “There weren’t many pictures of him on the internet.” Steve grunts. Bucky had liked his privacy. “I did see that he had a metal arm.”

Steve snorts. “Yeah. He lost it in the war.”

“Oh.” TJ is quiet for a moment, and when Steve glances at him he seems thoughtful. “So I guess they made me to replace it?”

“What?”

“His arm,” TJ says. He holds out his left arm as if to illustrate his point. “They probably wanted to give him my arm, right?”

Steve swallows, feeling nauseated at the thought. He sets his sandwich back on the plate. “His arm worked just fine,” he says. “I’m sure that’s not why they… made you.”

“Did you know about me?” TJ asks, sounding shy. “They said most people knew about their clones; that they signed up for the program as an insurance measure.”

“Insurance in body parts,” Steve snorts. “Jesus.”

“So you didn’t know about me?”

“No.” Steve scowls. “Of course not. And neither did Bucky. He never would’ve been okay with that.”

TJ seems satisfied by this. “Okay.”

They’re both quiet for a long moment, then Steve says, “He was older than you.”

“He was?”

“Mmhm.” He shrugs. “I don’t know how they uh, _aged_ you guys. But you’re definitely younger than him.” TJ has a younger, more fleshed-out face than Bucky’d had. His eyes don’t have any creases beside them. Steve thinks that he preferred the creases. “And his hair was longer, straighter.” Darker too, or at least he thinks. “And he was bigger than you.”

TJ frowns. “I don’t get it. We’re supposed to be genetic copies.”

“He worked out,” Steve clarifies. “A lot.” He doesn’t say anything about the serum that Bucky’d had. No point in telling TJ about that. “So yeah, he looked a lot different than you.” _Not different enough though_ , he thinks.

“I see.”

Steve goes back to eating his sandwich, feeling tired from this discussion already. “What else do you want to know?” he asks. Hopefully they can get this over with and then he can get TJ set up with a hobby or two and they won’t have to interact with one another anymore.

“Did he… do you have any pictures of him I can see?”

Steve freezes, looks up from his sandwich. “No,” he says, lying without knowing exactly why. He stands up in a hurry, leaving his half-eaten sandwich abandoned on the plate. “Excuse me. I’ve got… work to do.”

He locks himself in his studio and fails to paint anything good.

.oOo.

It’s movie night. All of the avengers are assembled in Tony’s home theater to watch Natasha’s selection of _Blade Runner_. She’s in the seat to Steve’s right, Sam on his left. In the row behind them, TJ’s been adopted by Darcy and Wanda, both of whom can’t seem to stop being fascinated by him. Steve eavesdrops as they ask him questions.

“Do you remember being born?”

“I think they grew us in artificial wombs.”

“Did they keep you locked up?”

“No. …Well, we had habitats.”

“How’d you get old so fast?”

“I don’t know.”

“How old are you really?”

“Three, technically.”

“Who named you?”

“I used to have a number, but the social services people said we should try and pick names so I picked TJ.”

“What’s it stand for?”

“Twin James.”

The girls giggle. Steve cringes.

.oOo.

“You should talk to him,” Sam tells him as they spar. Thor’s over to the side, getting a drink of water (or mead, Steve’s not sure). The Asgardian had gone a few rounds with Steve to wear him out so that he could have a fair fight with Sam. “I mean look at him; he’s obviously lonely.” 

Steve glances over to where TJ is sitting by the weights. He’s half-heartedly doing bicep curls while he stares at Natasha doing her stretches. Steve wants to roll his eyes. Obviously the gay gene didn’t get passed on. “Seems plenty entertained to me,” he says, blocking a jab meant for his throat. 

“Everybody knows you’ve been ignoring him,” Sam says.

“What am I supposed to do? Play board games with him?”

“Why not? I’m sure he’s got no idea what they are. You could teach him Scrabble. Wasn’t Bucky good at that?”

Steve swipes Sam’s feet out from under him but Sam is able to roll away in time to avoid being pinned. They both spring back to their feet. “I don’t want to play Scrabble with him,” Steve says. “I don’t want to do anything with him.”

“Man—” Sam is cut off as Steve gets a jab in, then tumbles them both to the floor to hold him down until Sam taps out.

-

“Look,” Sam says once they’re both toweling the sweat from their eyes. “I get that seeing him is hard. He reminds you of Bucky.”

“It’s like seeing a ghost.”

“You’ll never get used to him if you keep avoiding him like this. And it’s hurting his feelings. I think he expected you to be his friend or something.”

Steve feels awful. He chugs from his water bottle (not mead) and sighs when he’s done. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

Sam claps a hand on his shoulder, sympathetic. “He might not give you a choice. Look out; he’s coming this way.”

Steve turns just in time to come face to face with TJ. The guy is looking at him with interest in his eyes. “Could you teach me to fight like that?” he asks. “It looks like fun.”

Steve cringes, he can’t help it. “I’m not like a normal person. I’d probably break you.” He nods in Sam’s direction. “Sam can give you some lessons if you really want to learn.”

TJ looks disappointed. “Oh. But I was hoping you could teach me.”

“Why me?”

“Well we could spend some time together and—”

“Look,” Steve says, interrupting him. “I know you want a friend, but I’m really not the best choice. Anybody else would be happy to hang out with you.” At TJ’s hurt look Steve adds, “I’m sorry, but its just too hard for me. You have to understand; I was married to him. I loved him. And you, well… you look and sound just like him. It’s too painful for me to be around you.” He pauses, looking over TJ’s face. “Do you understand?”

TJ still looks hurt but he nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I understand.”

Steve leaves the gym feeling sad and like a sack of shit, but fairly sure that he’s put TJ off him for good.

.oOo.

The Avengers are called away on a mission. Something to do with a terrorist attack in New Asgard. Fury makes it sound serious but Steve honestly just feels sorry for whatever schmuck thought it was a good idea to attack Thor and Loki’s people. 

An unfortunate side-effect of the Avengers all being out of the tower is that Steve is left all alone with TJ. They both stay confined to their suite—Steve in his studio and TJ in the living room. Steve sets TJ up with his own Netflix profile, which thankfully keeps him occupied for most of the day. When Steve’s not working he ventures out long enough to make dinner for the two of them. One night it’s a roast with vegetables and another it’s eggs and pancakes. TJ seems to like the pancakes, so the next night Steve makes waffles. He tries not to think too hard about the way he feels when TJ’s face lights up at the first bite.

Then one night Steve wakes to the sound of screaming. It’s muffled through the walls but he can tell what it is. He debates about getting up for only a moment, but then Jarvis is speaking up and telling him,

_“Captain Rogers, TJ is in distress. I believe he is having a—”_

“Nightmare. Yeah, I got it. Thanks Jarvis.”

Jarvis seems to understand that he’s not needed and he doesn’t speak again. Steve sighs, gets out of bed, and shucks on a tee shirt to go over to TJ’s room and wake him up.

TJ’s sitting straight up in bed, his eyes wide open but still clearly asleep. He’s screaming—something about needing to _run!_ and _hide!_ and _no please don’t!_ —and there’re tears leaking down his cheeks. Steve’s heart clenches at the sight of him. He rushes to the side of the bed and sits on it, taking TJ’s shoulders in his hands and shaking him. “TJ, wake up. Wake _up_ TJ.”

TJ gasps and wakes, eyes flashing around in a panic. He’s breathing heavily still, and when he registers Steve in front of him he gives a heaving sob and throws himself into Steve’s chest. Steve just sits there for a minute, stunned and not knowing what to do, before instinct takes over and he wraps his arms around TJ. He shushes him, rubs his back and soothes him with gentle words, surprising himself. Really, he shouldn’t be. He’d done this with Bucky so many times that it’s like his body just remembers what to do. He waits for a long moment, holding TJ and waiting for him to calm down. “It’s okay,” he soothes, speaking gentle into his short hair. He smells like Bucky, and it’s with a pained lurch that Steve realizes somebody must’ve given TJ the same, generic Avengers Tower shampoo that Bucky had used. “Shhh, it’s okay. It was just a dream. Just a dream.”

Eventually TJ gets a hold of himself and he pulls back. He looks at Steve sheepishly, embarrassed. “M’sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Steve doesn’t know what to do with his hands now that TJ’s not in them. He places them on his thighs. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” TJ nods, scrubs his hands over his face. It’s weird, Steve realizes, to see two flesh hands there. “Just a nightmare.”

“…Want to talk about it?”

TJ looks surprised. Hell, Steve is surprised. He kind of wants to take the offer back. “Sorry,” he says hurriedly. “You don’t’ have to tell me. I’ll just go back to my room.” He makes to stand, but TJ’s hand shoots out and grabs him. Steve lowers himself back down.

“I was dreaming about the facility,” TJ tells him. “Where they kept us.”

“Oh?” As far as Steve knows TJ’s never talked about this before. 

“Yeah. They um, they started going around to everyone’s rooms,” TJ says. “At first nobody noticed anything. They were real quiet about it; just went in room-by-room with needles and walked back out.”

Steve gulps. “Needles?” 

“Mmhm. My friend, 33684,”

“33684?” Steve says, confused. Then it dawns on him. “Oh, right. You didn’t have names.”

TJ nods. “She was your friend Natasha’s clone.”

“Oh.”

“She came into my room. She was scared.” TJ smirks. “She was kind of like the real Natasha, in that she didn’t show her emotions that much, but I could tell she was scared. She’d seen what they were doing. She got me up, got us running.”

“What happened then?”

TJ twists his lips, looking unhappy at remembering. “We got a group of about twenty of us together. 33684 knocked one of the handlers out and we sole his security tag; used it to get out of the habitat.”

Steve feels cold at hearing all this. He’s somehow kept himself from thinking too much about what TJ’s life might’ve been like before. It’d seemed unreal until now. “And then?” he asks, needing to know.

“We ran.” TJ shrugs. “We didn’t know where we were going. It was confusing; lots of hallways and locked doors. At the time we still didn’t know that the facility was underground.” He frowns. “We didn’t know anything. Not that we were clones, or prisoners. We’d always been told that there was some sort of apocalyptic event. A disease that killed people. We were supposed to be the survivors, and they kept us there to protect us.”

“Jesus.”

“Hm, yeah.” TJ shudders and Steve has to resist the urge to reach out and physically comfort him. “We had to run from them. They had guns. They…” he swallows. “They shot everybody.”

“But not you.”

“No, not me. I got through an air vent and made it into this little storage room. Nobody knew where I was and I just stayed in there, hiding.” TJ looks down, shamed. “They were killing my friends and I just hid.”

Now Steve does reach out and lay a hand on TJ’s shoulder to comfort him. “Hey, there was probably nothing you could have done. You were unarmed. They just would’ve killed you too.”

TJ shakes his head. “I know that, logically I know that. But I just keep remembering hearing everybody’s screams.” A tear slips from his eyes, tracking down to his jaw. He wipes it hastily away. “And I was in there for a long time. They told me two days. There were rescue people who came and were calling out for survivors, but I was afraid it was just a trick, that they’d kill me too. So I stayed hiding until somebody opened the door to the room I was in.”

“Jeeze TJ,” Steve says. “I’m so sorry.”

TJ sighs. “I lived. I got out. I was lucky.”

“Yeah you were,” Steve agrees. He’s quiet for a moment and then he says, “Are you going to be alright now if I leave?”

TJ sniffs but nods. He gives Steve a watery smile. “Yeah, don’t mind me. I have these dreams all the time. I’ll be fine.”

Steve’s heart clenches at hearing that TJ has suffered from these nightmare before. He can’t help but to think of Bucky, and how he’d always had nightmares too. Even after being free from Hydra for so long, he still hadn’t been able to shake the nightmares. Steve sighs, knowing that Bucky had never like being left alone afterwards. Steve had always been there for Bucky, held him in his arms and comforted him back to sleep. Steve knows he can’t bring himself to hold TJ like that, and hell, he probably wouldn’t even be welcomed if he tried, but the least he can do is stay with him. “Scoot over,” he says reluctantly. “I’ll stay with you if you want.”

TJ’s eyes widen. It’s clear he hadn’t been expecting this. “You… you will?”

“If you want.” Steve nods. “Bucky never liked to be alone either, after.”

It’s tentative, but TJ smiles at him. “Thank you.” He moves over to the other side of the bed to make room for Steve. Steve lays down and yanks the spare pillow under his head. He makes no move to touch TJ but TJ looks completely satisfied to just have the company. “Goodnight,” he says, still looking grateful.

Steve offers him what little of a smile he can. “Goodnight TJ. Get some rest.”


	5. Recognizing TJ

After Steve spends the night in TJ’s bed, things shift between them. It becomes easier for Steve to be around him. He doesn’t know exactly why. Perhaps, he thinks, it’s because he can sort of view TJ as his own person. It makes him seem even less like Bucky and Steve doesn’t wind up thinking of his late husband every single time he’s around TJ. 

It also helps that he starts to notice differences—both physical and personality-wise. TJ likes sweet, doughy foods and avoids things that Bucky would’ve gobbled up; things like eggs and cheese and potato chips. He likes to listen to music and Steve catches him dancing in place in the living room a time or two. Bucky had the musical appreciation of a deaf man and the rhythm of a cow. And after one less-than-productive sparring session with Sam, it becomes very clear that TJ doesn’t share Bucky’s old enthusiasm for physical pursuits. The differences in TJ’s personality intrigue Steve and make him more curious about what TJ could be like if he had a real life outside of the tower. 

… They also make him have funny, warm feelings when he’s around TJ. But he pretends they don’t.

Over breakfast one morning Steve has the startling realization that TJ’s eyes are a different color than Bucky’s; his eyes are flat out grey, whereas Bucky’s had been blue. Steve doesn’t quite understand that one, as he knows that TJ is literally a genetic copy of Bucky. Or at least he’s supposed to be.

He brings it up with Bruce the next time he sees him. They’re in Tony’s workshop, Steve to fool around with Tony’s 3D printer and Bruce to do something scientific which Steve only partly understands. He asks Banner, “How do you think it is that TJ has physical differences from Bucky?”

Bruce looks up from what he’s doing with his microscope. “Physical differences?”

Steve nods. “He’s got wavier hair. His eyes are grey and Bucky’s were blue. And I’m pretty sure TJ’s allergic to shellfish (they’d had an interesting night after Steve had made shrimp scampi for dinner the week previous). “Bucky wasn’t allergic to anything. How is that possible if he’s supposedly Bucky’s clone?”

“Allergies aren’t necessarily genetic. They’re environmentally-triggered.”

“But what about the other stuff? His hair and eyes?”

Bruce looks stumped. He screws up his face and says, “Huh, good point,” then goes back to looking through his microscope. Steve figures Bruce has no idea, and so he goes back to figuring out how to print out a plastic spoon. About five minutes of silence later, Bruce starts speaking without looking up from his work. “Well,” he says, “Bucky had that serum. The one you have.”

“Mine’s different somehow,” Steve corrects. “Some knock-off version they uncovered in Russia.”

“Right, but the serum Bucky had; it altered his strength and other capabilities. It could be that some physical attributes were changed as well. Did Bucky ever mention anything like that?”

Steve squints. “Um…” he’d talked extensively with Bucky about his life before the war, before Hydra. It’d been fascinating to Steve, to hear about how Bucky had had a life throughout the twenties and thirties and—well, _some of_ —the forties. Then Hydra had happened, and Bucky had never liked to talk about that. Steve thinks back to the few old photographs he’d seen of Bucky. They’d been in black and white, but Steve thinks that he remembers Bucky’s hair being wavy like TJ’s in the pictures. “Wow,” he says. “Actually yeah. He did look different.”

Bruce hums. “Well then I guess that would explain it. TJ _is_ a genetic copy of Bucky, pre-serum.”

Steve gets it, and the new knowledge somehow it makes it ache a little less the next time he sees TJ.

.oOo.

TJ has another nightmare, and then another, and another. Eventually they become almost a nightly occurrence, and Steve is losing sleep from all the times he has to go into TJ’s room and wake him up. So when he has another nightmare and Steve finds himself sitting on the bed and shushing TJ’s cries with soothing pats on the back, he asks, “Do you think it’d help if I stayed in here with you?”

TJ blinks, wiping the tears from his eyes. “You mean like before? Sleep in here?”

Steve nods. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t have any bad dreams when you did that,” TJ acknowledges. He seems to think about it for a long moment, and then he nods his head shyly. “Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that. …If it’s okay with you.”

Steve swallows. He wants to help TJ and honestly he needs to get a full night of sleep soon or else he’s going to go out of his mind. He doesn’t think he can take one more incidence of Jarvis waking him up over his room’s audio system. So he nods. “Okay then. I’ll just come in here and go to bed with you for a while. See if that helps.” He thinks about how inappropriate that sounds and hurriedly adds, “Just as your friend you know. I promise I’ll keep to my side of the bed and all.”

TJ blushes and it’s kind of adorable. “Yeah, course.”

The next night, Steve puts his pajamas on and goes to tuck himself into the very edge of TJ’s bed. TJ goes a whole week without having a nightmare.

.oOo.

The next time TJ wakes up screaming, Steve is right there to comfort him. He grabs TJ by the shoulders and brings him into his body in a tight hold. TJ is distraught as usual when he comes to, but Steve just shushes him and hugs him through it, rubbing a soothing hand over his back and telling him he’s okay, he’s safe.

When he pulls back and TJ kisses him, Steve doesn’t know what to do. TJ’s lips are warm and soft against his own and it feels better than it should. Steve hasn’t kissed anyone in two years. He separates them and looks worriedly into TJ’s eyes. His grey eyes. “TJ…” he says, faltering when he can’t think of what to say. “I can’t. You… you shouldn’t.”

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” TJ blurts. He looks hungry for Steve, wanting. “At the facility we weren’t allowed to touch. Not anybody. The guards would… they’d separate us if we even tried to hug one another.” He looks sadly at Steve. “I tried to hug Natash— I mean 33684, a few times.” He blushes and looks down at the bed covers. “Not in a sexual way, just… we were friends you know? She was the closest thing I had to a family.”

Steve feels like his heart is sinking at this. “You weren’t allowed to have _any_ contact?”

“No.”

That sounds awful, Steve thinks. Surely it can’t be healthy for a person to go without _any_ human contact their whole life. “Jeeze TJ, I’m so sorry. That sounds very lonely.”

TJ just shrugs. “S’just how it was.” He looks up and meets Steve’s eyes again. “I’m sorry I kissed you. I don’t know what I was thinking I just…” he looks at Steve pleadingly. “I’m attracted to you. A lot.”

“TJ…”

“I’m sorry I can’t help it. You’re really good looking and I spend all my time with you. And you’re _nice_.”

Now it’s Steve’s turn to blush. “I don’t know what to say. TJ I just… you’re _him_. It’s not right for me to—”

“I’m _not_ him,” TJ says. Now he looks angry. “I’m so sick of you saying that. I’m me. I might not be very interesting or have much a life yet, but I picked my own name and I didn’t pick ‘Bucky’.” He glares at Steve. “Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you see _me_?”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. He can’t deny TJ’s words. He’s right. Deep down Steve knows that he is. And less deep down, he knows he’s attracted to TJ too. It’s just more disturbing to him because he has to figure out if this is just his sorry attempt to get his husband back. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I get it. You’re your own person. I should see it. I _do_ see it.” He reaches out and cups the side of TJ’s face in his hand. “I’ll do better. I promise.”

TJ is leaning his face into Steve’s touch. He looks desperate for it. “Will you let me kiss you?” he asks.

Steve sighs, frustrated and confused. He can’t deny that TJ is beautiful. In his own way even. Is it wrong for Steve to want him? He just doesn’t know. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he winds up saying. He _hates_ the way his words make TJ’s face melt in disappointment. But he doesn’t take it back. “You’ll find other people that you’re attracted to,” he tells him gently. “Just give it some time okay?”

TJ looks sad but he nods. He pulls away from Steve’s touch, scooting farther back to his side of the bed. “Okay,” he says quietly. Then he lays down and closes his eyes. “Goodnight Steve.”

Steve wants so badly to say “I’m sorry.” The words are in the back of his mouth, pressing to get out, but he forces them back down with a heavy swallow. “Goodnight TJ,” he whispers.


	6. Nobody's Business but His Own

Steve is working on his latest painting when he hears a knock come at the door to his studio. He glances around the canvas. “TJ” he says, surprised. TJ’s never come into his studio before. 

“Hey,” he says. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” Steve puts his paintbrush down. He watches as TJ looks curiously about the room that is his studio.

“This is neat,” he says. He goes over to a stack of Steve’s paintings and drawings and looks through them. Steve winces but says nothing. A lot of them are of Bucky. “Oh,” TJ says, sounding shocked as he sees them.

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you.”

“…No it’s okay.” TJ keeps looking. “Wow. He really did look like me, didn’t he?”

Steve sighs. “Yeah. He did.”

“It’s so strange,” TJ muses. “To think there was a copy of me walking around all these years.” He abandons the paintings and walks over to Steve. “To think I was created just so they could use me for replacement parts.”

“TJ…”

“S’okay.” TJ waves him off. “I’ve gotten over it. It’s horrible, yes, but at least I’ve got the consolation that he didn’t now about it. That he wasn’t okay with it.” He shrugs. “I heard a lot of people are being put in jail—people who consciously contracted with Genocorp to make clones of themselves.”

Steve shakes his head in disgust. “They deserve to be in jail.”

“Hm, yeah.” TJ diverts his attention to the canvas that Steve is currently working on, and the reference picture he has by its side. “Wow,” he says, eyes immediately filling with wonder. “What’s that?”

Steve smiles at him. “Something called the Northern Lights.”

“The what?” TJ looks confused. “I… I don’t know what that is.” He looks back to the canvas. “Is that the sky?”

“Yeah. The northern lights are a natural phenomenon that occurs in the sky near the northern pole of the earth.”

“It’s beautiful,” TJ says. He looks down, sheepish. “I guess this is another thing that regular people know about, huh?”

Steve can sense TJ’s sadness. He reaches out and places his hand over his. “You’ll learn,” he comforts. “It’s just going to take some time.”

“Hmph.” TJ pulls his hand back to himself, and though it hurts Steve’s feelings, he lets him. TJ looks back around the studio. “So this is your job. You make money doing this?”

Steve snorts. “Not much.” When TJ raises a questioning eyebrow he elaborates, “This is my hobby. I do commissions when I can. But my real income comes from teaching. I teach art history and mixed-media composition at a local college.”

TJ nods. “Oh.” His brow wrinkles in thought. “Schools; they’re ordered elementary, middle, high school and then college right?”

“Um, yeah.” 

“Huh.” TJ twiddles his fingers. “I wonder what I’ll ever do for a job. That is if I’m ever qualified to have one.” He looks down, twisting his lips sadly. “I don’t exactly know how to do anything.” 

Steve frowns. It hits him all of a sudden, how limited TJ’s knowledge of the world is. “You’ve only been alive for three years?”

“Conscious for three,” TJ corrects. “Alive for ten.”

The difference is ridiculous either way, but Steve nods. “Did they… I mean in the facility did you ever go to school?”

TJ blushes. “We didn’t have school.”

Steve doesn’t know how to approach his next question, so he just flat-out asks, “TJ, can you read?”

“Look I know you must think I’m incredibly stupid but I’m—”

“No! I don’t think that.” Steve shakes his head. “I just wondered is all.”

TJ huffs, but he does say, “No. I can’t read. My social worker said she’d arrange for a tutor though.” He looks at Steve defiantly. “They tested us at adult services. I have a normal IQ you know.”

“I didn’t think you didn’t,” Steve says softly. “I’m sorry. It’s just… you know so little about the world. I want to help you but I can’t do that if I don’t know where you stand.”

“You… do you mean that? You want to help?”

“Yeah.” Steve bites his lip, picks his paintbrush up and looks back to his canvas so he doesn’t have to stare at the excited look that TJ is giving him. “I was thinking we could go out,” he says. “Explore the city.”

“Steve!” TJ exclaims. “I would love that!”

“Yeah?”

TJ scoffs. “I’ve been cooped up in this tower for weeks! Of course I want to get out and see things. The internet and Jarvis can only show me so much you know.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“So can we go out today?” TJ asks excitedly.

Steve chuckles. “Let me work on this for a bit more okay? It’s late already, but maybe we can go out for dinner. Would you like that?”

TJ beams. “You mean eat in a restaurant?!”

“Yeah.”

“Hell yes!” TJ pumps his fist, which makes Steve laugh again at his enthusiasm. “Gonna eat in a restaurant,” TJ says. “So cool.”

If Steve’s heart gets all warm and gooey at pleasing TJ with such a simple thing, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

.oOo.

Time flies as Steve starts to take TJ out and about more frequently. Their first trip to a restaurant is pretty uneventful. TJ doesn’t know how to read so Steve has to help him select something from the menu, but other than that it goes smoothly. They have a nice dinner and Steve promises to show TJ lots of other things.

In two weeks they manage to cram in visits to the Met, the national history museum, Broadway, Times Square and Central park. Steve gets a kick out of seeing TJ’s eyes go wide at things that only a child would find fascinating. He is like a child in some ways, Steve has to remind himself. It’s bittersweet to watch, since TJ’s ignorance only serves to remind Steve of how cruelly deprived he’s been his whole life. Still, the trips into the city are fun, and Steve finds himself feeling closer to TJ. And when TJ moves in for hugs and simple touches, eventually Steve finds himself providing them. It feels nice. He tries not to let it show too much, but he’s secretly becoming more and more enamored with TJ by the day. And if it makes him feel guilty when he’s by himself, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

.oOo.

It’s early in the afternoon and Steve and TJ are at Coney Island. TJ’s over at a nearby hotdog stand, practicing the use of money to purchase them each a hotdog and soda. When he returns to where Steve is leaning against the boardwalk railing, it’s with a triumphant smile. “I did it,” he says proudly. “Five dollars and thirty six cents.” 

Steve smiles and takes his hotdog from him. “Good job.”

“Money’s not so hard to figure out,” TJ says. “Even though Tony said everyone uses credit card nowadays.” He takes a chomp out of his hotdog, which he’s left plain because he’s mostly still unfamiliar with condiments. His eyes go wide. “Oh m’god,” he says through his mouthful. “So good!” He beams at Steve. “Can we have these for dinner at home, please?”

Steve takes a bite of his own hotdog and laughs. “Sure TJ. Whatever you want.”

TJ’s eyes focus in on Steve’s face. His eyes widen, then get a little darker. “You’ve got, um…” he swallows, steps closer. “Ketchup on your mouth.”

“Where?” Steve swipes at his mouth. “I get it?”

“No, uh, here.” TJ steps close and reaches up with his thumb. He carefully swipes at the corner of Steve’s mouth. It pulls away with red on it, and he sucks it into his mouth. Steve feels his stomach clench at the sight of TJ’s lips sucking on the digit. Maybe TJ can tell, because he leans in and hovers his lips only millimeters away from Steve’s own.

“…TJ,” Steve warns.

“Steve,” he purrs back to him. He looks at Steve hotly and then, with a sly grin growing on his face, asks, “Let me have a taste of yours?”

For a hot second, all Steve’s brain can produce is thoughts of sex. But then TJ touches his hand and guides it up. He meets Steve’s eyes as he gently steals his hotdog away and keeps looking at him as he takes a big bite. It shouldn’t be erotic, it _shouldn’t_. But Steve can tell that TJ’s doing it on purpose. “Jesus,” he hisses, grabbing his hotdog back testily. 

TJ just laughs and goes back to his own food. “Don’t get so upset,” he teases, eyes bright. “I only wanted a taste.”

Steve huffs. “I’m so sure.” If his dick twitched in his pants at the way TJ looked at him over that bite of hotdog, that’s nobody’s business but his own.


	7. There Are No Strings On Me

Things with TJ continue to go smoothly. A month passes, and then two. TJ eventually stops having nightmares, but neither one of them brings up the idea that maybe Steve should go back to sleeping in his own room. Every night Steve brushes his teeth and puts his pajamas on, and then he tucks himself into TJ’s bed. It’s not sexual. 

TJ will yawn, and smile, and murmur “g’night,” and then they’ll both fall asleep in their own time. Sometimes Steve will dream about TJ. And it’s actually _TJ_ in the dream and not Bucky, but Steve still kisses him the same and holds him the same like he used to do with his husband, and occasionally wakes up hard with the taste of kisses on his lips. But they’re just dreams, he tells himself. He can’t control what he dreams. It’s not sexual. 

And sometimes TJ will wiggle across the sheets in the night and when Steve wakes it’s to a snoring mess of brown hair pressed into his chest. When it happens in the night, Steve just holds him tentatively and lets himself enjoy it until he falls back asleep. When it happens in the early morning… he does the same damned thing, even though he could just as easily get up and start his day.

Sometimes TJ will moan in his sleep and it’s very clearly not a moan of terror, and Steve will have to angle his body away so that—

Fuck it. It’s sexual.

.oOo.

TJ has a therapist and several tutors. Whatever he does with them, Steve doesn’t know. They come to the tower on weekdays while Steve is working at the college. When Steve gets home, TJ usually has a proud smile and about a dozen things he can’t wait to tell Steve that he’s learned. “School” for TJ is very, very accelerated. So much so that, at one point, Steve quietly asks the woman who comes to tutor him in reading if TJ might possibly be a genius.

“I mean, he was reading _Spot the Dog_ last month,” he points out as Sharon’s grabbing her purse and coat off the hooks by the front door. “He just finished the sixth _Harry Potter_ book, for Christ’s sake.”

The woman smirks at him. “My nine year old reads Harry Potter.”

“You _know_ what I mean,” Steve says, glancing back briefly to check that TJ’s still on the couch watching _The Walking Dead_ —he is. Steve turns back. “It’s just a big jump.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she says, shrugging. “He’s a three year old clone who was kept in-utero for six years. I’m no scientist, but that’s got to make some difference.” When Steve looks dissatisfied at this explanation she just grins at him and pats him on the shoulder, reassuring him, “Don’t worry, I won’t have him read _Flowers for Algernon_ any time soon.”

It’s a literary joke that Steve doesn’t get until he googles it, and when he does, he doesn’t think it’s funny at all.

.oOo.

Steve spends all his free time taking TJ around the city, showing him new places and things. He even considers taking a sabbatical for the upcoming spring semester. There’s so much more he could show TJ, if they had the time. Steve finds himself thinking about those things in the gray spaces of his days; when he’s tying his shoes, when he’s pumping gas, when he’s stirring the pasta on the stove. He brings it up to TJ one night, flicking the burner off and carrying two plates of fettuccini into the living room where TJ’s made his way into season three of _The Walking Dead_. “Hey,” he says.

Onscreen, someone screams as a zombie starts chewing strings of meat out of their neck, and TJ hurries to pause the show. He looks up at Steve, beaming when he sees the food. “Yum! Thanks.” He takes his portion.

Steve forces his eyes away from the tv. He takes a seat next to TJ. “I’ve been thinking of taking some time off from my job,” he says.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. In teaching it’s called a sabbatical.”

“I know,” TJ slurps around a mouthful of pasta.

Steve has to contain his frown at the strange reminder of how fast TJ is learning _everything_. “Uh yeah. Well I thought I’d do it so that we could do more stuff together.”

TJ pauses in his eating. He looks over at Steve. “Like what?”

Steve shrugs. “Well, I don’t know. Like what we do now I guess, just… more. There’s more to the world than just New York, you know.”

“Like L.A.?”

Steve snorts and shakes his head. “There’s more to the world than just New York _and L.A._ ,” he nods at the tv, “Despite what the movies would have you believe.”

TJ get a big, shit-eating grin on his face. “And you want to, what? Show me the world? Carry me off into the sunset?” He sticks another forkful of pasta into his mouth and sits back to watch the blush that Steve’s pretty sure he _knew_ would appear when he said that.

“We could do more stuff,” he defends. “Like go on trips, yeah. I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska. Hike, see the Northern Lights.”

TJ freezes at that, eyes lighting up, and Steve can instantly see that he’s done good by remembering how much TJ is fascinated by the Northern Lights. Steve hadn’t wound up selling that painting; he’d let TJ hang it in his room. “ _Really?!_ ” TJ is looking at Steve the way that Bucky used to look at him whenever he’d done something especially sweet for a birthday or anniversary. And TJ’s eyes are gray and Bucky’s were blue, but that doesn’t fucking matter because they’re still the same goddamn eyes and Steve hasn’t had them staring at him like this in two goddamn years and he’s _missed_ it. 

…Steve is staring. He’s zoned out and he’s staring at TJ but he’s _thinking_ of Bucky. That sudden realization hits Steve like a bucket of cold water, and he has to turn away before tears start to prick at his eyes. He shoots up from the couch, pasta forgotten on the coffee table. “Uh, I’ll just… be back.”

He hides in the bathroom for a long time, turning the fan on and pretending to be pooping until he can stop thinking of Bucky and get himself together. When he goes back out and rejoins TJ on the couch, TJ seems to be able to tell that something happened—and it wasn’t pooping. He doesn’t say anything about it, but when Steve picks up his plate and TJ pushes play on the show again, he scoots over to sit close against Steve, comforting and quiet. 

-

At bedtime, TJ pecks Steve on the lips, tells him he knows how hard it is for him sometimes, still. He tells him he can go back to his room if he wants, that they both know the nightmares have stopped and he’ll understand if Steve needs his space. 

Steve stays.

.oOo.

Steve comes back from the gym, completely sweaty and gross and in a really triumphant mood because he’d finally, _finally_ bested Natasha in hand-to-hand (for such a small person she is unbelievably strong). Steve calls out for TJ when he’s in the kitchen, guzzling orange juice, but TJ doesn’t answer so Steve figures he’s listening to music in his room or something. Putting the juice back in the fridge, Steve heads for the shower. 

He freezes in the doorway to his bathroom when he gets in there and sees that TJ is in his shower, leaning against the tiled wall and jerking himself off. Steve’s jaw drops.

It only takes a second before TJ sees him and he’s instantly cursing, letting go of himself and turning away. That helps only marginally as then his naked butt is right in Steve’s view. Goddamn Steve’s bathroom and it’s clear fucking shower doors. “Get out!” TJ yells, and Steve scrambles to obey.

-

Later, in the living room, TJ finally ventures out with a sheepish look on his face and a blush on his cheeks that Steve finds way too cute but is in no fit state to appreciate. “TJ, _what_ were you doing in my bathroom?” he asks, not sternly but definitely baffled.

TJ’s blush gets much, much worse. “I was jerking off,” he says defensively. “It’s allowed.”

Steve groans and slaps a hand over his face, scrubbing it. “God, no. I _know_ that I just…” He removes his hand. “Why were you in _my_ bathroom?”

TJ shrugs and looks at his feet. “I like it. Yours has those jet thingies that shoot water out from the sides.”

Steve huffs. “Oh my god.”

“What?!” TJ says, now defensive and angry. “It’s not my fault. You should’ve knocked first.”

“In my _own_ bathroom?!”

TJ huffs and stalks away. “Whatever Steve.” 

Steve’s just left to stew and try to erase the image of TJ, naked and slick, jerking off in his shower. He sinks back into the couch. “Fuck.”

It takes a couple of weeks, but eventually the jerking off incident gets forgiven and forgotten …Mostly …Except for when Steve masturbates and thinks about it to get himself off that much harder.

.oOo.

Steve peeks his head into TJ’s room and sees that he’s sitting at his desk, using the computer and talking aloud to JARVIS. The AI has taken over most of TJ’s tutoring now, has been his only teacher for months. It’d been an experiment, at first. Tony had suggested it, and once TJ tried letting JARVIS take over his math courses, he was very enthusiastic about dismissing all of his teachers and having the AI come on full-time. “I just like it, Steve,” TJ had argued, annoyed when Steve didn’t immediately jump on-board with the idea. 

“But real teachers could—”

“Who needs real teachers?” TJ had said, waving at the ceiling in indication of the speaker system through which JARVIS spoke. “J is better than all my other teachers. I’m an auditory learner. It works for me.”

Steve had sheepishly agreed, consoling himself that, if nothing else, it would save them money. JARVIS had later found time to kindly tell Steve that he was “Sure real teachers were needed for some things. Like art.” 

Now, Steve leans in the doorway to TJ’s room. “Teej?” TJ swivels around in his chair, scowl on his face because he hates it when Steve calls him Teej. Steve just smiles winningly at him. “You ready to go?”

TJ blinks for a second before he seems to remember what it is that they’re doing today, and then he shoots up. “Yeah!” He spares JARVIS (or, the ceiling, really) a quick glance. “Finish later J!” 

_“Of course, Sir.”_

"Gonna be a Real Boy!" TJ crows.

-

The trip to the social services building doesn’t take more than twenty minutes. Inside, Steve has to walk briskly to keep pace with TJ. They’re there to get all of TJ’s identifying documents. TJ practically snatches the folder he’s handed and starts rifling through it with a smile. “Steve,” he says, grin spread over his face. “I’ve got a birth certificate!” He holds it up and laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world. “There-are-no strings-on-me!”

Steve snorts at the _Pinocchio_ reference, taking the birth certificate and looking down. The document lists both TJ’s mother and father as “unknown,” his birthdate as _October 18, 1993_ , and his last name as “Barnes.”

Steve gulps, upset by that last but not wanting to seem like he is. “Guess they got your birthdate from the GenoCorp records?” he says, voice coming out quieter than he means for it to. 

TJ takes the paper back and looks at it again. He snorts. “More like my ‘decanting’ date. But yeah, guess so. I asked to be twenty-five, so they put that year for me.” He shoots Steve a sly look, “Hey, you think they would’ve put 1918 if I’d said I wanted to be 100?”

Steve swallows, mind instantly shooting to how Bucky had been born in 1917…

“But seriously; I look like I could be twenty-five, right? Oh, hey looks like they gave me Bucky’s name.” Steve tries hard to keep a neutral expression at that. Then TJ’s face splits in a grin and he says, “Hey! Now you and I have the same last name!”

Steve gapes. “I… I hyphenated mine. Rogers-Barnes.”

“Eh, close enough.” TJ loops his arm through Steve’s and drags him back out of the building, insisting that now that he has an actual, legal identity, they’re going straight to the DMV to acquire him a New York driver’s license.

.oOo.

Steve is able to talk TJ out of trying to complete the test for a driver’s permit, but only just. “There are just some things that you _cannot_ learn from an AI system!” They wind up getting him a New York state ID card instead, and TJ is just as happy to stick that in his back pocket as anything else. 

“Okay,” he says, when they finally, _finally_ escape from the DMV. “Now I want to go to a club!”

Steve is walking in pace with TJ down the sidewalk, but he comes up short when he says that. “Um, what?” he asks. “No?”

TJ has stopped too. He doubles back and pouts at Steve’s side. “But I’m old enough to drink!” He pats his butt meaningfully, indicating the pocket where he’s shoved his new plastic ID card. “I want to go drink and dance!”

Steve winces at how excited TJ seems about that. “Clubs are awful,” he tells TJ. “They’re crowded and loud and somebody always spills something on you. Completely overrated.”

“Says the man who wears sweater vests,” TJ counters.

Steve looks down at his outfit defensively. Bucky used to make fun of Steve for wearing them too, but he’d also told him he sort of liked it. _“Gives me that hot for teacher vibe,”_ he’d always told Steve, usually followed by a smirk and a, _“May I suck your cock, Professor Rogers?”_ or some such filth. Steve blushes as he pinches the knit of his sweater and remembers…

“Hello? Earth to Steve?” Steve’s eyes jerk up, refocusing on TJ. TJ is looking at him with raised eyebrows. “I _said_ : we need to go out. I need to drink!”

Steve groans. “No TJ. You don’t. Drinking isn’t that great.”

“Says you and not _one_ single thing I’ve seen on tv.” TJ pokes him. “We’re going.” He starts back down the sidewalk, mind made up. Steve follows like a lost puppy.

“No we’re not.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yep. Totally are.”

-

When the evening hours are approaching and TJ has pilfered something stylish from Tony’s closet and is threatening Steve that, _fine, he’ll just go out with Wanda and Darcy instead_ , Steve panics (TJ _cannot_ be allowed loose in the city with Darcy) and caves. He tells TJ he’ll take him out. “To a bar or lounge, not a club,” he insists. TJ pouts but doesn’t fight it, thank goodness. Steve doesn’t dance, _can’t_ dance. Bucky hadn’t been able to either, and so arguing over going to a club hadn’t ever been something Steve had had to deal with in his marriage. 

Steve tries to be patient and lets TJ raid his closet to choose something “acceptable” for him to wear as well. 

-

“This is great!” 

Steve watches, half in annoyance, half in amusement …and half in arousal, as TJ dances in place by their couch. That’s one-too-many halves and makes no sense, but neither does the way Steve’s feeling about the drunk kid in front of him. “Teej, come sit down,” Steve tries, embarrassed at the way TJ’s little dance is making him feel, and not unaware of the glances it’s drawing to their spot in the lounge. Some of the glances are odd, but some of them are heated. Steve hasn’t missed the man just down the way at the bar who can’t seem to keep his eyes and his smirk off of TJ. Steve throws the guy another scowl when TJ’s not looking, but either the man doesn’t notice or else he just doesn’t care. Steve tugs on TJ’s hand again, finally getting him to come back to their couch and sit down. TJ pouts.

“I was dancing!”

Steve rolls his eyes. He reaches and picks up his beer. “This isn’t that kind of establishment.”

TJ scowls and picks up his own drink, swiping it out of Steve’s reach before the other man can take it from him. “Yeah,” he complains, sipping it. “Because you wouldn’t let me take you to a _real_ party.”

“TJ, stop that. You’re drunk,” Steve scolds.

“Yeah, that’s the point!” TJ beams. He scoots closer to Steve and throws his arm around his shoulders. Steve blushes massively but doesn’t shrug him off. If TJ’s drunken advances throw off the staring guy at the bar, then it’ll be worth it. He glances to the bar; the man is frowning. _Good_. “Stevie, Stevie, Stevie,” TJ is saying. “You’re too uptight. You need to let loose, like me!”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You’re letting loose enough for the both of us.” He glances at his phone. It’s nearly one o’clock. He reaches around and takes TJ’s drink away from him before he can stop him.

“Hey!”

Steve downs the bit that’s left, sets the glass onto the table in front of where they’re sitting. “You’ve had enough,” he says, kissing the top of TJ’s head before he can think better of it. “You’re already going to be regretting this tomorrow.”

TJ pouts as Steve disentangles himself and stands. “This is my first time getting drunk. It’s a right of passage. I’m losing my drinking virginity!”

Oh god. Steve feels another blush creep over him at the direction _that_ sends his thoughts. “Yeah well you’re going to lose your hangover virginity tomorrow,” he tells him. He glances back to the bar but sees that the guy there has left. Okay. He looks back at TJ. “You think you can manage to stay here and not get into trouble while I hit the restroom?”

TJ huffs, looking like he thinks Steve is ridiculous. “Course.” He folds his legs and puts his feet up on the table. “I’ll be good,” he says, smirking. 

Steve nods and turns away. He really has to piss, otherwise he’d never chance leaving his drunken charge alone. “Good,” he throws back at TJ. His eyes locate the sign that hangs over the bathroom hallway, and he steps off in that direction.

-

Steve comes out of the restroom, looks in the direction of the bottle-service couch that he’s paid _way_ too much money for, and immediately growls. The man from the bar has gone over there and is sitting on the couch with TJ, arm around him and talking in his ear. Steve feels his guts churn in ~~jealousy~~ concern. “Goddamn it.” He hurries over. 

TJ’s eyes shoot up and he grins widely when he notices Steve. “Steve! This is Gavin.” He tips his head at the man who is obviously angling to snap TJ up. He’s bought TJ some sort of fruity-looking drink, which makes Steve nearly want to snort—they have _bottle service_ , for Christ’s sake. “He bought me a daiquiri!” TJ says, sounding very happy about it. “It’s so good!”

Steve frowns, steps forward and takes the drink from TJ’s hand. He sets it on the table, ignoring TJ’s squawk of protest. “That’s very nice of him, but you’ve had enough,” he says. He reaches down and takes TJ’s hand to haul him up. He receives two glares for that. TJ goes willingly into his arms with a huff, and _Gavin_ scowls. “What’re you, his chaperone?”

“Boyfriend, actually,” Steve snaps, not thinking twice before throwing out the lie. It’ll get this guy off of TJ’s scent, and that’s what’s most important. Steve only half-notices TJ’s shocked inhale by his ear. He tightens his hold around TJ’s side. “We were just leaving,” he tells Gavin. “The table’s paid up. Feel free to enjoy it.”

Gavin’s face freezes, then morphs from aggravation to surprise, to a pleased look. “Oh. Well… thanks.” 

Steve rolls his eyes. _Some admirer, TJ_ , he thinks. “Yeah, sure.” He pulls TJ with him and heads for the door. 

TJ complains all the way from the club’s exit to where Steve’s parked his motorcycle. “That was _rude_ ,” he tells Steve, huffing and tucking his chin down as Steve puts the passenger helmet on him. It shuts him up well-enough though.

“You need to watch yourself,” Steve tells him. His voice is muffled from his own helmet, but he can tell that TJ hears him. “And don’t accept drinks from strangers. People can drug them you know.”

“Drug them with what?”

Steve feels his guts clench at the poignant reminder of how damn naïve TJ is. He grunts and snaps down the visor of TJ’s helmet. “Get on the bike,” he tells him. He gets on, and a second later TJ does too. Steve waits for him to grab onto his waist. On the ride over it’d been a thrill, having an excuse to be so close, and Steve had let himself enjoy the contact. Now he just tugs TJ’s arms tight around himself and tells him. “ _Don’t_ let go. You’re drunk and we’ll be home soon.”

TJ doesn’t say anything, or if he does Steve doesn’t hear it as he revs the bike’s engine. He feels TJ’s arms tighten even further on him and his thighs tighten behind him, though, and that makes him feel more confident that they’ll get home safely. Sighing, he checks the traffic in the street and pulls out of their parking spot.

-

Back at the apartment, TJ doesn’t waste time in confronting Steve. Steve has already gone into his bedroom— _his_ bedroom—and changed into pajamas. He’s at the sink in his bathroom and is brushing his teeth when TJ comes in and stands next to him, leaning his butt against the vanity’s counter. He folds his arms and gives Steve a wry look. Steve notes that he looks marginally more sober now. “Wha?” he asks through the foam of the toothpaste in his mouth.

“You’re a real buzzkill, you know that?” TJ says. 

He’s looking at Steve with a weird expression. Steve doesn’t know whether it’s more annoyance or amusement. He spits into the sink. “You were out of control.” It’s an exaggeration, but he lets it stand.

“I was just having fun,” TJ says. “I know you were trying to look out for me but I was fine. That guy was nice. You could’ve let me talk some more to him.”

“And let him ply you with more drinks until you did something you’d regret?” Steve scoffs. “I don’t think so.”

TJ just stares at him for a long minute, and then his eyes darken. “How do you know what I was going to do? Huh? And who are you to say that I would’ve regretted anything? I’m a grown fucking adult Steve. I know you hate to believe that, but it’s true. So what if some guy wants to buy me drinks and flirt with me?” Steve gapes, and that makes TJ scoff. “Yeah, I can tell when I’m being flirted with, Steve. I’m not an idiot.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I know a lot of things. I’m allowed to flirt with people. I’m allowed to do what I want. You’re not my dad.” 

Steve blushes, embarrassed. “I _know_ that. I—”

“And I’m allowed to be with people, if I want,” TJ presses. He pokes Steve’s arm with a finger. “I can touch them, and kiss them, and fuck them if I want.”

Steve gapes. “ _TJ_ ,”

“Don’t ‘TJ’ me,” TJ scowls. “You treat me like a little kid Steve. I’m not!” He pushes off the counter and steps closer to Steve, trapping him against the edge of the sink. It’s way too close but Steve doesn’t push him away. “Maybe you don’t want me, won’t be with me, but that’s your choice. You don’t get to keep me locked up and not let me be with anyone else.”

Steve’s mouth is flopping like a fish, he’s sure. “TJ, I’m not—”

“ _God_ , shut up.” TJ surges in, smashing their mouths together. It’s fast and graceless, but Steve’s hands fly to his waist and instead of pushing him away like he intends to, they hold him firm. He starts kissing back. TJ makes a noise of surprised pleasure, and then he’s reaching up and looping his arms around Steve’s neck, and pressing his hips into Steve and it feels so good and he tastes like strawberry daiquiri…

Steve inhales sharply and pulls back. “TJ, wait...” 

TJ opens his eyes. They’re heavy with lust and after a second of taking in Steve’s expression, he looks pained. “I don’t get it, Steve,” he says. “Why won’t you just be with me? You obviously want to. I want to, too.”

Steve grimaces. Because TJ’s words are true. “I just… I don’t want to…” He stops talking, trying to figure out what he even wants to say, what he even thinks. In the end he winds up looking down between their bodies, if only to avoid TJ’s stare. “I don’t know,” he says. 

TJ stays very still for a moment, but then he’s using one hand to lift Steve’s chin, to make Steve look at him. TJ has a tender expression on his face. “Is it because I look like him?” he asks. “Does it make you upset?”

Steve is immediately shaking his head. “No, TJ, no. I… yeah it was that. At first. But I don’t think about you that way anymore. You’re… you’re you. I know that. I see it.”

“Then what?” TJ asks, sounding sad. “Why can’t you let yourself have me? Why can’t I have you? Why is it bad?”

Oh god. Steve’s heart clenches. TJ looks so, so sad. Steve suddenly wants to kiss him again. He wants it more than anything. All the desire that he’s been pushing down for months comes bubbling up to the surface, and for once Steve doesn’t push it back down. He cups TJ’s face between his hands and pulls him in for another kiss, only this time _he_ leads, and he kisses him slowly, deeply. TJ seems to melt into it, following what Steve does and moving his mouth in the same, heavy slide. When Steve pulls back, TJ makes a disappointed sound. Their eyes open at the same time. The look in TJ’s eyes makes Steve gulp. He realizes that he’s a little hard in his jeans, and TJ is too.

“Be with me,” TJ says, but he says it quietly, hoping.

Steve breathes with his mouth open, feeling overwhelmed and like he’s giving in to this. It’s upsetting, how much he wants to give in. “I… okay,” he says, and he says it so quietly that he hardly hears the words. It’s the way that TJ’s eyes light up that lets him know he’s actually said it out loud. “Okay.”

“Really?” TJ’s face is alight. He kisses Steve again and pulls back. “You mean it?”

Steve licks his lips. “Yes.” God, he does. He’s wanted this for a while, he realizes. For longer than he’d like to admit. He wonders when it became okay. “Yes,” he says again. “God, TJ, yes.”

They kiss again, and again, and it grows heavier. Until TJ’s hands are roving all over Steve and their hips are moving in a dirty grind. Steve eventually forces himself to pull back, even though he hates the whine that TJ makes at it. “Wait, wait,” he says, needing TJ to listen to him. “I want to, I do,” he says.

“Then come on,” TJ says. He steps back and grabs Steve’s hand, starts tugging on it to get him to leave the bathroom. “Come to my room. I want to do it there.”

Steve’s dick twitches. “No, TJ.”

TJ freezes. He looks back at Steve. “What?”

“No. We’re not doing that. Not tonight.”

TJ whines. “But _Steve_ , why not?”

Steve smiles apologetically, and the apology is both for TJ and for his own aching dick. “Because,” he says softly, pulling on TJ to get him to come back into his arms. He pecks a soft kiss to his lips. “You’re very, very drunk.”

“Ugh, that’s okay,” TJ says. “I want it, I swear.”

Steve has to smile at how much TJ obviously means that. “I believe you,” he says. “But people can’t consent when they’re drunk. _Especially_ if it’s their first time.”

TJ pauses, then he blushes. “Well,” he hedges, for the first time looking like he doesn’t know what to say. Steve speaks for him,

“I want to be with you when you’ll actually remember it, Teej.” He strokes the hair at the side of TJ’s head, thinking about how its texture is so different from how Bucky’s was. “I want it to be better than this.”

TJ looks like he’ll argue, but after a long minute, he seems to deflate. He groans and buries his face into Steve’s shoulder. Steve lets him. “Ugh. Why do you always have to be responsible,” he complains, “and right?”

Steve chuckles and hugs TJ tightly against him. “Just perfect that way, I guess,” he says, though he in no way feels any less achingly disappointed than TJ sounds. He kisses TJ’s forehead and hugs him. “You’ll thank me for it later.”

TJ makes an unamused sound into his shoulder. “I seriously, seriously doubt that.”

Steve just shushes him and sets about getting them both to bed. This time in separate bedrooms.


End file.
